Trading Filet Mignon for Chicken Pot Pie

Feb. 26, 2009, The New York Times — In the Gilded Age of the 1890s, when the local opera company held a benefit, it might have included world-class singers and ice sculptures ringed with caviar. Tickets would have been steeply priced, and the bedizened guests would have lined up to spend lavishly on games of chance that helped the charity.